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['The Musical']

Can't help but love 'The Musical' even though it probably crosses the boundary on how Dredd-lite a Dredd-lite Dredd can be. Not being terribly familiar with the character, am I missing some plot point that explains why only some people are terrified of Sensitive Klegg?

I'm not sure it's that Dredd-lite - the entire strip is going to be about someone telling his story, which I'm sure he'll really love.

Sensitive Klegg is a bit of a low level celebrity, so some cits are used to him but that doesn't mean that running into an eight-foot tall flesh-eating upright crocodile man can't come as a big shock.

The post Prog 2250 lineup has been strong but it's cool to see how a top notch Dredd can lift the rest of the prog a little bit higher.

No one has any thoughts on Indigo Prime coming back for a one-off next year? Will it be Kek-W again?

Black Beth was originally created for a 1970s teen girls horror comic that never happened but would also have been called 'Scream'. The completed story turned up in the 1988 Scream Holiday Special.

A Love Like Blood is probably my least favourite Smith series from 2000AD proper

Great art, great concept.

Possibly but it's the most conventional and high concept thing Smith's ever done and his least idiosyncratic.

Unfortunately hamstrung by an edict from The Powers That Be than no series could run more than ten(?) episodes for a single story,* due to a reprint deal in the offing with a European publisher who had a specific page count for their books. The deal never materialised, and the edict was withdrawn, but not before it had forced some very truncated storytelling on both this and (I think) Storming Heaven.

*Note: this edict was not Andy Diggle's famous "shot glass of rocket fuel" memo, which is regularly blamed for the LLB/SH thing, but something entirely different.

I think it's this more than anything that made me a bit dubious about Rebellion's first couple of years at the helm. There was probably less resurrecting old classics than it seemed at the time but 2000AD seemed to be struggling to get anything new and exciting off the ground. Necronauts and the first series of Shakara were probably hobbled by this as well.

A Love Like Blood is probably my least favourite Smith series from 2000AD proper so I don't see myself upgrading from the Cradlegrave trade paperback for this one. I'm still on board for Revere though.

The Strange Case of the Wyndham Demon would be nice too.

Alas it doesn't include the 3 text stories from the late '80s early '90s specials/yearbooks, the Steve Sampson drawn tale from the 1989 Winter Special, or the recent Katy Rex written tale from the 2018 Sci-Fi special.

The missing text stories doesn't come as a surprise but the strip omissions are a bit disappointing. The Winter Special one is only 6 pages - would it have killed them to squeeze it in?

Have now seen a copy. The omissions are still perplexing, but not as perplexing as them sticking a couple of panels of 'Don't Forget to Blast Your Cache' in the text section as if to advertise that it's not a complete volume. (Did they even notice that there was a missing Smith strip as well?)

But... if it's not quite definitive it's great to have Tyranny Rex finally collected in book form. I really doubt Rebellion would publish a trade edition so it's still very welcome to have this.

Alas it doesn't include the 3 text stories from the late '80s early '90s specials/yearbooks, the Steve Sampson drawn tale from the 1989 Winter Special, or the recent Katy Rex written tale from the 2018 Sci-Fi special.

The missing text stories doesn't come as a surprise but the strip omissions are a bit disappointing. The Winter Special one is only 6 pages - would it have killed them to squeeze it in?

I tell you what though, good as that Dredd story is, wouldn't it have been even better if some innocent cits had been caught in the cannon fire and splattered across the sked?

Not for the innocent cits.

What's with the use of "excitement" instead of "thrill" anyway?

Strontium Dug is the first time I've felt that a Regened take on a standard Tooth character has captured the tone of the original.

Though I question if any of The Young People will get the Yootha Joyce and Brian Murphy cameos.

Abolish Tuesdays!

It's mainly a quarter-page strip in the Nerve Centre but expands to a full page in a couple of progs.

I suspect Revere and Cradlegrave will end up as two volumes, paired with Slaughterbowl and A Love Like Blood respectively.

Also, would that be two former 2009ad scriptbots whom Kek-W & Lew Stringer are taking a poke at there in Wiz War?

Wiz War's been around since 1968 so it's probably just a coincidence.